


The dead girl, Crush and the other guy

by Ischa



Category: Original Work
Genre: Big Bang Challenge, Demons, Disturbing Themes, F/M, M/M, Magic, Supernatural Elements, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-21
Updated: 2011-09-21
Packaged: 2017-10-23 22:24:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/255706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ischa/pseuds/Ischa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This story's about a girl that wakes up dead and figures she's now a zombie, by ruling out all the other undead creatures, Crush - who is sharing his body with a demon since birth and Alec who had no idea his crazy witch-grandmother would be of some help with his love-life - but the last part is up for discussion anyway. Also about heart-jars – how they are made and what you can use them for.<br/></p>
<p>
  <i>“So, I have this thing,” Alec says out of the blue not looking at Crush.<br/>“A thing? Like a sexual crisis thing?” he asks stealing a french fry from Alec's plate.<br/>“No, more like a heart in a jar thing,” Alec answers, trying to sound nonchalantly but failing.<br/>“A heart in a jar?”<br/>“Yes, or that's what my grandmother says it is. A heart in a jar. She has no idea what it's for, but I think you might know,” Alec says and he does look at Crush then.<br/>“Me?”<br/>“Yes, you because you have some of them as well.”<br/>“Were you looking through my stuff?” he asks, taking another fry from Alec's plate.<br/>“I stumbled upon them. They aren't exactly hidden, you know.”<br/>“They are in my bedroom.”</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	The dead girl, Crush and the other guy

**Title:** The dead girl, Crush and the other guy  
 **Author:** [](http://creepylicious.livejournal.com/profile)[**creepylicious**](http://creepylicious.livejournal.com/) / [](http://alles-luege.livejournal.com/profile)[**alles_luege**](http://alles-luege.livejournal.com/)  
 **Pairing:** M/F, M/M, mostly gen  
 **Rating:** R  
 **Summary:** This story's about a girl that wakes up dead and figures she's now a zombie, by ruling out all the other undead creatures, Crush - who is sharing his body with a demon since birth and Alec who had no idea his crazy witch-grandmother would be of some help with his love-life - but the last part is up for discussion anyway. Also about heart-jars – how they are made and what you can use them for.  
 _“So, I have this thing,” Alec says out of the blue not looking at Crush.  
“A thing? Like a sexual crisis thing?” he asks stealing a french fry from Alec's plate.  
“No, more like a heart in a jar thing,” Alec answers, trying to sound nonchalantly but failing.  
“A heart in a jar?”  
“Yes, or that's what my grandmother says it is. A heart in a jar. She has no idea what it's for, but I think you might know,” Alec says and he does look at Crush then.  
“Me?”  
“Yes, you because you have some of them as well.”  
“Were you looking through my stuff?” he asks, taking another fry from Alec's plate.  
“I stumbled upon them. They aren't exactly hidden, you know.”  
“They are in my bedroom.”_  
 **Warning(s):** disturbing, creepy, character death (of some sorts), violence, coss-dressing (not in a sexual way)  
 **Author’s Notes:**   I want to thank my [wonderful artist](http://chibifukurou.livejournal.com/48655.html), check her lj out (seriously you guys, the sandwich and the heart-jar. I am in love with these! <3), my beta and the mods for their great work.  
 **Word Count:** 20.436  
 **Beta:**  [](http://seriousfic.livejournal.com/profile)[ **seriousfic**](http://seriousfic.livejournal.com/) (thank you so much!)  
 **Disclaimer:** My literary property

  
One  
 _The dead girl_

~1~  
Marta was having a sandwich when something hit her head hard. She couldn't even swallow or scream or do much of anything really. She just fell. Face down on the tabletop.

When she woke up, she was dead.

It's a funny thing, somehow, being dead. Marta didn't realise it right away. Who would? One minute she was having a sandwich, the next she was dead. It was a lot to take in. So she sat up and looked around. She was not at her mother's table in her parents' house anymore. She was somewhere else. She didn't know where she was or how she got there. The first few minutes she thought she kind of maybe hit her head – because that's how she remembered it – and had a concussion. Perfectly normal when you hit your head pretty hard. Nothing to worry about, not much at least. She wriggled her toes a bit and then her fingers, everything seemed to be fine. So Marta jumped from the small long table she was sitting on. The floor didn't feel like much of anything. She knew it should feel cold under her bare feet; maybe she was in shock? Daddy always said people in shock didn't feel much of anything.  
She would let Daddy take a look at her when she got home. Then everything would be right again.

~+~  
Her mother screamed and then lost it completely. She began to pray, she never prayed. Daddy was standing stock still in the hall. White as a sheet, just staring.  
That night she found out that she was in fact dead. The how and when, that took a bit longer.  
The why she didn't stay in her grave, well, that was a mystery still to be solved.

~+~  
She wasn't a ghost. She still isn't a ghost.  
She is just not a living, breathing person anymore. Everyone she loved is dead by now and here she is, sitting in a coffee shop, warming her hands on a mug of tea. She doesn't drink or eat or sleep. Not much, not usually. She doesn't need to do all these things. She doesn't feel much of anything either. Extreme cold when she's lucky, or something really, really hot. Pain: the bone deep kind as well.  
It's not really fun being dead and not knowing why or how she didn't stay dead. Like normal dead people should. Daddy called her eccentric all the time, but that is just a bit too much, even for her.

The sun is going down already: it isn't even spring yet and it is foggy. She kind of hates the fog, it always makes the world unreal somehow. More than it's to her anyway. If you don't feel much with your body, the world always feels like you're watching it through a bubble. Marta sighs and gets up. Time to go home, feed the cat and stare at the ceiling until it's day again. A repetition of days and years and decades.

  
~2~  
Sometimes she sleeps. She sleeps for days like a proper dead person. It used to creep her out like hell, but it doesn't anymore. It's just another creepy piece of a puzzle in her undead or dead life. She isn't really undead, she's not a vampire. She reads up on them a lot, some just for the fun of reading. She ruled out being a vampire, because she doesn't drink blood or sleep in coffins (she could; everyone could).  
She is not a ghost either, because she has a body. Ghosts don't have a body, the books are pretty clear on that one.  
Marta is thinking she's a zombie of some kind. Not in a bad and creepy and man-eating way. She isn't an animal that mindlessly kills strangers for their brains. That's why she wasn't so sure on her zombie theory at first, but let's face it: Dead girl that walks and talks and has a body. A body without any bodily functions most of the time. She can't hear her heart or her breathing. She only pretends to breath, because it's easier that way to live among humans. She has no illusions here. She's a smart girl. She's a zombie and Hollywood has it all wrong, and does her kind injustice as well. She's represented in a very bad light. Not that she ever saw another zombie, or something supernatural at all. For all she knows, Marta could be the only supernatural being on the whole planet.  
That thought makes her depressed on some days. She doesn't dwell too much on it. It's not like she can do anything about it anyway.

~+~  
Mika The Cat, all in capitals, because you can totally be eccentric as hell if you are dead, is sitting on the windowsill while Marta makes tea in her old teapot. It's not as much old as it is antique to be honest. She got it from her mother, before she was cast out of the house. The house she is living in now. She bought it after her parents died. She spent a week at their graves and waited for them to get up again. It was only logical, if you think about it for a moment, after all they were her blood and she didn't stay dead. She had to get it from someone, right? Well, as sound as that logic was, she figured out after eight days that this was some mystical shit that was going on with her, because her parents didn't leave their graves. It was a depressing thing to discover.  
So, she is making tea in her antique teapot when Mika jumps down and runs to the door. Mika is a fucking strange cat, even for cats in general, who are all strange as hell. Terrorists on velvet-paws. All of them with no exceptions. She runs into Marta's legs and Marta swears, unladylike. If only her mother could hear her... well.  
A second later the doorbell rings like it's broken. If Marta were a normal girl – living and breathing and all that – she would've maybe thought a second about opening that door, but she is not a normal living girl, so she doesn't.

“Goddamit! I'm coming!” she shouts, grabs a towel and is drying her hands on it while she crosses the kitchen and the hall to get to the door. The bell is still ringing like it's broken, or being murdered.  
She opens the door with an energetic gesture and someone falls into her house. Better, onto her hall-floor.

“Thank fucking god! Now shut that freaking door!” the boy shouts. She looks from him to the door and back and then he sighs and kicks it shut himself. He gets up in a flash, cuts his palm and smears a symbol on her door.  
Well, she thinks, this is not a morning like any other.

“Tea?” she asks, because her mother raised her right.

“What?” the boy says, distracted. He is still kind of staring at her door or maybe the symbol on it drawn in blood.

“Tea? I'm making some, or do you want a towel? A bandage?” she answers.

“A bandage would be nice,” he replies, looking her up and down.

She shrugs and waves him to follow her into the kitchen. That's where she keeps the bandages and the first aid kit anyway. She has no clue why she even has one, as nothing ever happens to her body anyway. She just _is_. She was a bit worried she would rot away, but it never happened, so she thinks she'll just live until the world dies and maybe takes her with it. Could take some thousand years for it to happen, but well, it's not like she can do much about it now.  
She gestures for him to sit while she gets the kit and then she just hands it over. He still looks at her like she's going to bite him.

“Well, I'm taking tea,” she says.

“Uhm… okay...” he answers and it seems to Marta like he wants to add something so she smiles encouragingly or something. She doesn't smile that much, or talk to people, because she doesn't want anyone to find out that she is in fact not a living human being. It could lead to disaster. She's seen the movies, okay? She knows what they think about people like her.

“So...you just painted a strange symbol on my door...” she says as he doesn't continue whatever he was thinking.

“Yes.”

“I am pretty sure it has a purpose,” she prompts.

“It does.”

“Let's pretend I don't know about this kind of stuff for a moment, shall we?” she replies.

He rolls his eyes at her while he's cleaning up the wound. “It's for protection. So that no one can find me. Or that house as long as that blood is on the door,” he answers.

“Great. So you're a magician?”

“A magician?” he asks. Somehow his voice sounds amused.

“You know like Merlin or Harry Potter!” she answers, clutching her mug of tea.

“Are you often confusing reality with fiction? They aren't real. Drink your tea.”

“Oh, I don't drink,” she says before she can think about it. He gives her a strange look and she can't even blame him. “I just like how it smells and the warmth trough the china,” she says. “I'm eccentric,” she adds after another look.

“That would explain a thing or two,” he answers with a frown.

“So, do you want to stay for dinner? I could order something?” she says. She can't cook a thing as she doesn't eat much. Ate only four times since that one last sandwich before she was killed. She is pretty sure now she was killed. The memories came back a few decades back. She can't remember who killed her or why though.

Mika jumps on the table and hisses at the boy.

“Your cat doesn't like me much.”

“She doesn't like anyone who isn't de- me. Who isn't me,” she answers.

“Are you paying?” he asks.

“What?”

“For dinner,” he clarifies.

“Are you a broke magician?”

“I'm not a freaking magician,” he sighs.

She gives him a look this time. He just painted a symbol in his own blood for protection on her door. Everyday people don't do that. She watches TV okay? She knows about this shit.

“Yes.”

“Great. I'd be delighted to stay for dinner,” he answers finishing bandaging his arm up.

  
~3~  
His name is Crush, or that's what he says. Marta isn't one to judge, she is still going with her birth name, but it's more because it's the only thing that ties her to her life. She always hated her name. Marta was such a common name. Is still, but she learned to like it. When she was a little girl she always wanted a name like Annabella or Marianna or maybe Princess Britannia (her daddy didn't call her eccentric for nothing):

Crush is sitting on her couch like he belongs there. Like he was living on the thing his whole life. Maybe like he was born there. He's wolfing down Chinese food that really smells delicious and Marta is so totally going to try as soon as one of her freaking compulsive eating attacks starts again. They happen now and then. She isn't hungry for brain or raw meat or something. She's just hungry then and eats everything (she supposes she _could_ eat a brain if it were on offer). A few years back she started to make lists of dishes and things to eat she would like to try during the attacks. It served her good. She can plan these weeks of eating like she'll die if she doesn't. And maybe she would. How can she know? There is no book that tells you how to be a proper zombie or helps you trough your first CEA (compulsive eating attack). Maybe it's because there are no zombies - well, except for her of course.

“You only have movies about zombies,” Crush says into her thoughts.

“Hmmm? Oh, yes. I like them,” she answers and doesn't tell him that she has so many because it's research. It started out as research and then developed a life of its own.

“They're pretty creepy, zombies I mean,” Crush says putting the plate on the table. He didn't want a plate, but Marta was raised right by her mother (as stated before). It was a bit tricky to let it deliver as the house is invisible or something to anyone except those people who are inside. Crush didn't explain it properly. Marta suspects he is not trusting her. And why should he? He doesn't know her and besides she is a zombie – not that he knows that. But still. A valuable point. She is an evil mystical creature of the night. When she thinks about it that way...when he is a magician shouldn't he know? Shouldn't he be able to sense her deadness? Or whatever?

“They're not like that in real life.”

“Okay...” Crush says, amusement colouring his voice.

“I mean, because there are no zombies in real life, obviously,” she adds hastily.

“Obviously.”

~+~  
Crush doesn't only stay for dinner, he stays for the night and then breakfast as well. Mika is hissing every time she sees him and then sits on the highest surface to watch over him with eyes that look like slits. She looks mean that way. Marta really loves that cat. Mika showed up one night and just stayed and because Marta had been feeling like the last person on earth, she was really glad for the company. Mika never hissed at her- not directly that is.

He's sleeping on the couch in only his underwear. Marta thinks he should make some clothes or buy some or something if he wants to stay. She would lend him some of hers, but well...she only has skirts and panties.

~+~  
“You reek,” she says on day five into his stay at her house.

“You don't eat,” he declares in the same tone she used.

“Your problem is worse right now.”

“How? I am eating and drinking and pissing and you...” he waves his hand in some strange way and finishes with: “not.”

“Wow, you're so brilliant. It blows my mind,” she answers.

He laughs. “Go shower,” she sighs.

“I have no clothes,” he answers.

“You can walk around naked for all I care or I'll lend you some of my clothes,” she replies a bit mean.

“I want a dress with flowers on it!” he answers and hurries into the bathroom before she can even think about an answer.

Mika hisses in his direction and Marta nods agreeing with her wholeheartedly.

~+~

“You know,” he says, sitting on the floor in only a towel, she cocks her head to show him that she's listening. “I choose this house because I was sure it was empty,” he finishes.

“You rang the freaking bell!”

“Afterwards.”

“After what?” she asks.

“You are not a human being,” he states with a grin as if that is all a big freaking game.

“Are you?”

He shrugs. “Who ever can answer that question?”

“Oh, don't go all philosophical on my ass now,” she answers.

He laughs. “You are not denying it.”

“Well, I think I am not human.”

“I only detected dead people and a cat when I threw a spell at the house.”

“Oh, well. I am a dead person. I think I am a zombie.”

“I came across zombie-ducks once,” he answers, leaning his head back, so it's leaning against the couch. The line of his throat looks kind of delicious she thinks. Hmm, that was a funny thing to think. And unusual and creepy, she tells herself sternly.

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Where they, uhm... eating other ducks?”

“Like the living ducks?” Crush asks.

She nods.

He grins. “No, they were kind of just sitting there in a cage. I saw them at the Voodoo market.”

“Aha.”

“You don't get out much do you?”

“I'm a zombie-girl.”

He waves his hand dismissively at her. “That is no excuse to stay buried in the house.” He laughs. “You didn't stay buried in your grave either. Why start now?”

“I find it funny that you are not the slightest bit freaked out about this,” she answers.

“You offered me tea after I smeared my own blood on your door in a sigil,” he replies.

“Well, yeah. I am dead. There is nothing that can freak me out.”

“I wouldn't bet on it,” he answers and it sounds a bit off. Like he is talking about something really serious. Really dark. Of Voldemort proportions maybe.

“So, is this the part where you tell me who is hunting you down?”

“Uhm, no. We don't know each other that well.”

She sighs. Mika makes a disgusted noise at the back of her throat.

~+~  
The thing is that they know each other apparently well enough that he can steal her tea and complain about the lack of food in her fridge the second week in. And he still has no clothes and is wearing hers. He looks ridiculous wearing her skirts and dresses. The shirts look alright, as he has a narrow chest. He's bare feet all the time. Digging his toes into the soft carpet in the living room and standing on the wet tiles for over 30 minutes to just feel them. His pale hair dripping even paler water onto the floor until she knocks sharply onto the door and throws a towel at him without looking, because deep down she's still a lady. Whatever that means or is worth in a world like this. Whatever it was worth in her time. She has no idea. Sometimes life really seems to be too freaking long.  
He comes out then a few minutes later with his hair still dripping and the towel around his small hips. He really is just a boy. No more that eighteen maybe. Maybe younger.

“You want Chinese or Italian?” she asks. It's kind of fun having him around and she likes that she can watch him eat.

“Let's try something else today!”

“What?”

“Let's just take this Korean menu here – I just found lying around,” he winks, that liar, “and see what the big deal about Kimchi is! Let's be adventures!”

“Uhm, yeah, sure. Adventure away,” she answers.

Mika, The Cat, makes a noise and jumps from the shelf she was having a nap on. She sits down beside the door and stares at Crush. Sometimes Marta is sure the cat is trying to tell her something. Too bad she has no powers at all. Except being dead, but that isn't a real power and does no one any good.

“Don't you want anything?”

“I don't eat,” she replies firmly, because she doesn't. Except the CEA, and she is not going to talk about them. He is not talking about who is after him either. Why the hell he's hiding out in a dead girl's house. Not that she's minding the company. The thing is that he isn't going to stay. He's going to leave her sooner or later. She is after all an unnatural thing from hell – or wherever. She has no idea where she comes from, well she knows where Marta Adamski came from, because her Daddy used to talk all the time about the old country and how you can never forget where you come from. She didn't know much about her country, she lived where she lived and not where she was born. She still lives where she lived and maybe, maybe Crush is right. Maybe she should just leave the house. She has enough money to do something else with her life. Something fun, maybe something important even.

“Korean it is then!” he says and hands her the menu, so she can call the restaurant. He never calls, she suspects it's because _they_ could find him that way easier. Whoever they are.

  
~4~  
“I suspect,” Marta says, “he's a total nutcase.” She thinks Mika is so on board with her. “I mean, he did smear his blood on my door,” Mika makes a noise that sounds like he's being called names, “our door, I mean, and didn't let me scrub it away.”  
Mika pushes her head into Marta's hand and Marta begins to pet her. Her fur is soft and dark and it always reminded Marta of earth. Mika sometimes even smells like earth when she comes back from the garden because she was caught by rain while doing something catty or other. Hunting birds, playing games with dogs or – whatever cats like to do when they aren't home. Anyway. Back to the problem at hand: Crush.

“What kind of name is Crush anyway?” she muses out loud.

“What kind of name is Marta?” he asks, amused, from the doorway.

"This is a private conversation,” she answers.

He laughs. He always laughs like he means it. It's nice. Her father used to laugh like that before, well, before he had to bury his daughter.

“With your cat? You know it is not a conversation if no one talks back. If only one person is talking it's called a monologue.”

“How can you be sure she doesn't talk back? You know, you can not not talk. Body language is called language for a reason.”

He cocks his head, considering it, she thinks, and then nods. “I give you that one, dead girl.”  
It should be a bad thing, she thinks, when he calls her that, but it's really not. She kind of likes it. She likes how he says it. Like it's the most normal thing in the world. It isn't she knows it and he knows it, but when he says it it still _feels_ that way.

“So, what did you want?”

“Hmm?”

“You didn't interrupt my conversation with Mika only because you could, did you?”

“Will you bite me when I say yes?” he asks, grinning. She grins back. He is ridiculous. His hair in a ponytail and wearing a green shirt with her favourite purple skirt. It kind of works on him. Maybe because it goes with his light hair, she muses.

“Maybe,” she answers.

“You were checking out my tits,” he says.

She blushes. “You don't have any!”

“Well, you can check out my ass now while you're following me into the living room,” he answers.  
She rolls her eyes and Mika snorts, but gets up anyway.

~+~  
They end up watching Shaun of the Dead.

“You know, I wonder why there are so many movies about zombies that aren't about zombies,” Crush says, taking a sip of his tea.

“Because no one ever wanted to see them?” she ventures.

He waves his hand dismissively at her. He does that a lot, and it's a bit annoying. “I would totally watch a movie about a dead girl.”

“Uhm... there is zombie-porn,” she says, her eyes fixed on the tv.

“There is zombie-porn...”

“It's mostly about how she doesn't have to breathe?” she answers.

He chokes on his tea and puts it on the table. “You watched zombie-porn?”

“In my defence, I didn't know it was porn at that time.”  
He grins wide.  
“And I'm not going to watch it with you or answer any questions about that matter!” she says hurriedly.

~+~  
“You know,” he says at breakfast a few days later. He has stayed at her house for 53 days now – not that she is counting or anything.

She cocks her head and hands him the butter without prompting. “Yeah?”

“You're pretty okay for a dead Victorian girl,” he says.

“Oh thank god! I thought there was something wrong with me.”  
He rolls her eyes at her and nudges his mug, she pours more tea.

~+~  
It's a nice routine they fall into and she is mostly pretty okay with him wearing all her favourite skirts and leaving her t-shirts everywhere except in the bathroom where the freaking washing machine is.  
She likes to come down to the smell of coffee and bacon, listening to him sing softly and off key, she likes to leave him on the couch when his body just gives up on him during movie nights, she even likes that he has staring contests with Mika, who always wins them.  
She doesn't even care about him leaving wet prints all over the bathroom and hall-floor after showers.  
She didn't think she was missing something while she was living alone in her parent's house. With Mika as the only other living thing, or maybe as the only living thing – after all Marta is a zombie and that surely means she it not a living thing. But the things are still a bit unclear on that front.  
So when she comes down on day 66 to coffee and silence, she is a bit worried.  
It's just this feeling around her stomach. An uneasiness in her whole body.  
He's sitting at the table waiting for her.

“Okay, I don't like this,” she says.

He smiles, but it doesn't touch his eyes. “I'm leaving today.”

“You're leaving,” she repeats, leaning on the door-frame. She thinks he might need the support. She never really thought he would stay, but maybe she hopped he would. It was nice with him.

“Yes, at 17:47,” he states.

“That's precise,” she answers, because it freaking is.  
He takes a sip of his coffee. She closes her eyes. Something like hunger rises in her veins, but it's not the tell-tale sign of a CEA. This here is softer, but somehow more vicious.

“That's when the spe- sigil,” he corrects himself, “that's when the sigil stops working.”

“And will you be alright? Will they be able to find you?” She is angry and worried, but mostly worried and hungry.

“I don't think they will. This was a powerful sigil and you being all...”

“Dead,” she supplies.

“Uhm, yeah, that, made it stronger somehow.”

“You have no idea how it worked, do you?” she asks. She has a few theories about him on her own, but, well...what good does it do her now? What good did it do her before? At least he had 66 days. A funny number.

He shrugs. “No. I have no clue, but that is the beauty of it, isn't it?”

“I suppose,” she answers.

“So, thanks for everything and...” he looks at her for help she realises and has to laugh.

“God! I'm a dead girl, you can't break my heart.”

“Isn't that a song?” he asks and she smiles at him.

~5~  
Despite her brave words she doesn't get up at all for the next two months. She just stays in bed and imagines to be a proper dead person. Maybe if she would bury herself in the soft earth in her mother's garden, maybe the insects and maggots would do the rest. But to be honest, maggots kind of freak her out. It might be something about the colour or how they are so...slimy looking. She can't really describe it.  
Marta shivers only thinking about it.  
Mika stays with her most of the time, except when she has to go and hunt something down outside the house.

~+~  
Marta finds shirts and socks in the most unusual of places when she finally gets up and starts to live her undead and unassuming life again. Under the couch and between bookcases, and on one occasion in the freezer. She has no idea and there is no one to ask anymore anyway. She just sights and throws it into the bin with the other laundry she has to do.  
Mika is watching her all the time, like maybe she's a bit worried and a bit sorry too that Crush left them.  
In the end, Marta thinks, Mika maybe kind of grudgingly tolerated him.

~+~  
Three months after Crush left she throws some clothes into an old suitcase, grabs her keys and her valet and leaves the house. She has no idea where she wants to go, but it really doesn't matter because she wasn't anywhere except here where she lived and died and then lived again.  
It's time to leave and have some adventures of her own.  
Mika looks a bit sceptical at her and Marta can't blame her one bit. Mika totally has had some adventures, but never too far away from home.

“Okay,” Marta says, taking a deep breath she doesn't need. “Okay. We can do that. We totally can.  
It's a big scary world out there and we are going to have some very awesome adventures in it!”  
Mika cocks her head as if considering Marta's bubbling and then meows.  
That's the best Marta can hope for and she knows it.  
The summer is slowly dying and changing into autumn, but it's still pretty warm. Or looks it. The dead girl doesn't feel the cold much. It's one of the advances to be dead, she thinks and it isn't even bitter.  
Living is what you make of it. Life is what you make of it and it really shouldn't matter that you are technically dead.

  
Two  
 _The heart-jar_

~1~  
Alec found the heart-jar by accident, because that's how people usually find these kinds of things and he didn't even know it was a heart-jar or what a heart-jar was. If he knew, he maybe wouldn't have bought it at all, maybe he would. You can never know.  
Fact is that Alec bought a heart-jar without knowing it.  
Another fact is that it wasn't an ordinary heart-jar (not that any heart-jar could actually be ordinary, there aren't that many out there and as far as anyone knows they aren't made anymore either, so a heart-jar is rare thing to begin with), it was a heart-jar of a dead girl.  
At first glance the heart-jar looked pretty ordinary, that's why it was standing on a shelf in a small shop in Poland for years and years before the shop was closed and the heart-jar was given away to someone else who didn't want it. The heart-jar had a long journey behind it when it ended up at a flea-market where Alec just had to buy it.

“This thing is filthy!” his mother said, her lips curled in distaste. Missus Thomas didn't like filthy things at all. They made her nervous, that's why she actually hoped for a girl, but well...she got Alec instead and he wasn't so bad.

“We can wash it,” Alec said absent-minded, he already had handed over the money and rubbed the jar on his jeans. His mother sighted.

“What is this thing even?” she asks as she made her way back to the car, her son following her a step behind, looking at the heart-jar.

“A jar,” he answered, because that was what it was and it wasn't what it was, but he could not explain the other thing to her, the _wasn't_ part. He didn't understand it himself.

“We have a dozen of them in the basement. Aunt Emilia left them there. Why did you have to buy one?” she asked, but he knew she wasn't really interested in his reason. She never really was when it mattered.

“I just had to,” he muttered.

~+~  
He washed the heart-jar when they got home while his mother was preparing dinner, something healthy with a lot of vegetables he knew he wouldn't like at all, and put it into his closet afterwards just to forget it was there.

~2~  
Alec finds the heart-jar by accident as he cleans out his closet, because he lost his freaking history book – not his, that is, but his girlfriend's, which makes it so much worse, because she is totally on her way to dump his ass anyway.  
The heart-jar rolls out of the closet and he picks it up, forgetting what he was looking for in the first place. It looks old, even older somehow than the day it caught his eye nearly four years ago. He is not the thirteen year old boy anymore who is easily fascinated by things his mother would hate anyway, but something about the jar (and he still doesn't know what it is and what it's for and more importantly: what it contains) is still fascinating.  
It's made of dark glass, not really brown, not really green, a reddish colour somehow, that looks brown in a certain light. The lid is made of metal and there is copper wire all around it with little beads and pieces of leather, battered feathers and something that looks like small bones. He was fascinated by the bones in the first place. That was, he remembers now, the reason he bought it. Or maybe it was something else. He can't really remember anymore. It was so long ago. A lifetime it seems. When he holds it against the window it seems like something is inside. Like those little foetus-things in formaldehyde, but it doesn't move. It's stationary, held in place by invisible strings.  
The funny thing is, Alec things, it never made him shudder.  
He rubs the dust away on his shirt and puts the jar on his bedside-table, just next to the small lamp and Good Omens. He really needs to try and open that thing one of these days. He kind of dies – just like all these years ago when he was a kid – to find out what is inside.

“Did you find it; Alec!?” she yells.

“No!” he yells back. Right, there was something he had to do first here. History book. Very important. He goes back to rummaging in the closet and forgets all about the jar as he finds it and runs down the stairs to hand it over to her.  
Her hair is a mess and her mouth says she really kind of has enough of him, but she lets him kiss her against the wall close to the door anyway, before she leaves.  
Alec counts this as a win.

~+~  
He knocks the heart-jar over that night when he switches off the lamp (he hears a soft noise, but is too tired to get up and look for what he knocked over) and forgets about it again.

~+~  
That's the thing about a heart-jar, if you don't look at it, you just tend to forget it's there. The magic doesn't call to you all the time. It's really a strange kind of magic to begin with, its purpose unclear to anyone except the maker of it and the person it belongs to. Which isn't always the maker or the current owner. In the most cases it is, well, the person the heart belonged to.

~3~  
Alice throws a book at him and misses, because she usually does when she's really angry and right now, she is really angry. Alec thinks it's some kind of instinct that she doesn't really want to hurt anyone, but she can't help herself and just starts throwing things in people's directions.

“Listen,” he tries, but she is so beyond this and he knows and it is his own fault, okay, he knows that. Still.

“I saw you with her!” she screams.

Which yeah, that's why they're here in his room and she is throwing things at him – or in his general direction. “But I lo-”

“If you say it, I'm going to kill you,” she says calmly and that, that's the moment he knows she's not going to put up with his shit anymore.

“I'm sorry,” he says, but the truth is, he isn't even sure he is sorry. It was only a dance and a kiss and he is sure that nothing else would've happened, but well, if you start to kiss other girls you know something is not right.

“We are so over,” she answers and storms out.

He sits down on the floor and takes a shaky breath. That hurts kind of more than he expected it to hurt.  
He grabs blindly behind the bedside-table to retrieve the book and his fingers close around the heart-jar instead.  
Hhm, he thinks, he forgot about that thing and it was only weeks ago that he found it again. He holds it up to the window and in the setting sun the small thing inside looks like it's alive, like it's moving. He nearly let's it slip through his fingers, so freaking shaky is he. He closes his eyes and counts to ten, then opens his eyes again to look at the jar. The thing (he still has no idea what it is, because he has no idea that this is not an ordinary jar, things have names for a reason) is small and only a shadow against the reddish-brown glass and it's perfectly still. Like it always is, even if you put the jar upside down or shake it. It never leaves it's place in the middle of the jar.  
He inspects the jar carefully this time. Counts the beads (17), the feathers (5), the leather-stripes (7) and the bones (10), but three are teeth, so he isn't sure if he should count them in or not. The whole lit is covered in the wire and when he tries to shove it away to see more of the metal it doesn't work until he cuts himself on a sharp piece he didn't see before (maybe because it wasn't there). The wire gives a little bit and he discovers a small lock on the side of the lid.  
Well, he thinks, fuck. He is sure as hell he never had a key to this thing. He looks at it sharply and then shakes his head. He could try and break it open, but maybe it would make the jar break and then he could just throw it away and as strange as it is, he held on to it for so long, even if he didn't even know it was there, that he doesn't want to see it in pieces now.  
He puts it on the top-shelf and then gets the book Alice threw at him. History. Of freaking course, but this one is his.  
He puts the book on the desk and goes down to make something to eat. He is suddenly really freaking hungry.

~+~  
His mother always thought it was important for him to connect with his roots, as she put it, never mind that she never wanted to do it. They were after all, she pointed out on several occasions, not her roots. Which was true and so Alec had to go spend every first three weeks of his summer vacation at his grandparents' house. The parents of his father, who is living a new life somewhere else. Alec isn't bitter (anymore). It wasn't that bad, before grandfather died, but now that his grandmother was alone, well, Alec thinks she got a bit weird, more weird than usual. She is not an old cat-lady, but that is only because she doesn't like cats or they don't like her. Same difference.  
She stands in her doorway, her dark skin glittering and he can smell vanilla. She's baking, or was.

“You look like your dad, but paler,” she says upon his entering and hugs him. She always says that and maybe it's even true. Of course he's paler. His mom is as white as a sheet. Dad used to call her Pearl when they were still together. She and grandmother don't get along that well, but then they never did.

“You making cookies?”

“Sure, what else does an old woman like me have to do?” she asks, but she's winking at him.

“Oh, I don't know, selling dove-hearts to desperate women?”

“And men, my dear. They are as desperate and crazy as women are when it comes to love,” she answers, grabbing his writs and pulling him inside. He leaves the bag at her porch for now. No one ever wanted to steal anything from that porch. Maybe because people think grandmother Samira is a witch.  
She would never agree with them. What she's doing is not witchcraft, it would go against her god.

~+~  
He drags his bag to his room a few hours later and the first thing he gets out is the heart-jar. Maybe, even if she's not a witch, she knows what it is or how he can open it without damage.  
The jar looks a bit darker here without the big windows, without the sun, but not black. The thing inside is a piece of coal.  
He puts it on his night-stand, unpacks his things and then goes down for dinner.

~+~  
He only remembers the jar a few days later. He's reading as the light catches the dark shape inside and he has the feeling (again) that it moved. He puts the book away and pulls the jar closer.  
Now, he thinks, is as good a time as any, and gets up, the jar in hand.  
Grandmother is preparing dinner with a lot of vegetables, but it's curry and he loves the kind she makes. His mother never gets it right, mom suspects grandmother Samira leaves out her secret spice or something just to spite her. It could very well be true, Alec thinks.

“Hey, grandmother?” he asks, sitting down.

“Yes?” she answers, without turning. She's cutting carrots with a very sharp knife into very small pieces. And she does it very, very fast.

“I was wondering if you knew what this is,” he says, putting the jar down onto the table.

“Moment, dear,” she answers, putting the knife aside and washing her hands, before she turns around to look at the jar.

She takes a deep breath. “That is a heart-jar,” she answers.

“Okay...?”

“It's made from a person's heart,” she explains, but he still doesn't get it.

“What?”

“This small thing inside is a human heart. Dried up I think. I don't know. I've never even seen one before today and I don't know, am not sure how to make one,” she doesn't say she doesn't want to know it, but it's there between them.

“What is it for?”

“I don't know,” she answers.

“What do you mean you don't know? You know what it is, but you don't know what it's used for?”

“Every jar is made with a different purpose,” she replies and mumbles a short payer.

“Okay,” he says, looking at the small heart inside. He is thinking about telling her that he thinks he saw it move, but in the end he doesn't. That would be way too creepy even for him, but he wonders what poor person this heart might have belonged to once upon a time and why that person had to die to make that heart-jar. “Maybe a love-spell?” he muses.

“I sure hope not. For a love-spell a dove-heart is fully sufficient.”

“Right, sorry...but you know you can open it. There is a small lock on the side of the lid, but no key.”

“Maybe some things should stay where they are,” grandmother Samira answers in a tone that tells him she's done talking about this.  
He's half waiting for her to tell him to throw it away, but this is an occult object and she knows better than that. It had found him and it stayed with him for some reason. He doesn't know much about these things, but he knows that. He puts the jar away and helps her cut the chicken.

~4~  
He forgets about the jar, or maybe grandmother Samira makes him forget about it by occupying him with other things and introducing him to a _really nice girl_. He likes her well enough, but it's not like he falls heads over heels for her. He is still too young for the whole marriage thing. It doesn't matter that grandmother married her husband at the tender age of sixteen. Times change and thank god or Allah or whoever for that he thinks as he watches some chick flick with the girls, because there is nothing else to do.

~+~  
He's glad when he can pack his stuff up. He does enjoy her craziness, he really does, but only in small measured cups. Three weeks a year is nearly too much to handle. He remembers having nightmares about the dove-hearts when he was small and sometimes still shudders when he finds them in the fridge behind a glass of home-made marmalade.  
There's just something really creepy about a small bird's heart with needles in it, covered in foil. Maybe it's only in relation to the other normal things in the fridge.

~+~  
Mom always asks how his vacation was and he always tells her it was fine and he had fun, because that's what she wants to hear and because it's the truth as well. He never tells her about the dove-hearts in the fridge. She would flip. Alec just knows it.  
He kisses her cheek and goes up to his room while he starts to prepare dinner. She never makes anything herself the first day he's back. It's always frozen pizza with extra cheese and he is fine with that.  
They eat it while they watch Dawn of the Dead on the new couch mom bought that is a shocking shade of green he kind of hates, but has to admit (if only in his head) is freakishly comfortable. For some reason mom always found zombies the most creepy and fascinating, that's how she met dad. He had a thing for horror movies too, Alec can remember that very well. There isn't much he remembers about dad, but the few things he does are as clear as anything.  
She still has a soft spot for them in a dark corner of her heart. They aren't that different, Alec thinks, she and grandmother Samira, but he'll be damned if he'll ever say that out loud to either of them.  
They would be in his face immediately. Everyone in her own charming way.  
He really doesn't need more trouble with the women in his life than he has right now.

~5~  
The thing is you can't decide to just not have any trouble. Trouble has a tendency to find you at the worst time possible.  
And that's why he is lying in a puddle right now and bleeding all over the freaking pavement.  
Someone is kicking someone's ass on his behalf, but he really can't see much because it's also freaking pouring – it was the whole day. That's the beginnings of winter for you on the north-coast. He would laugh or sigh or cry if it wouldn't hurt so much to breathe. But it does. Hurt to breathe that is and maybe he will never get up of that wet pavement and someone will find his dead body in some near future and there will be a lot of crying. Maybe his dad will show up at his funeral. He surely would, wouldn't he? Alec would show up at his dad's.

“Yeah, run along!” a voice snarls and then someone crouches down beside him. “You okay?” the guy asks.

Alec would like to nod, but he isn't feeling it right now. “No...” he says.

“Didn't think so,” the guy answers with a glance in the direction of Alec's bike.  
He sighs. “So, how well did you parents raise you?” he asks.

“Hmm?”

“I mean, are you going to get in my car or are you...” he waves his hand in a kind of dismissive gesture that says nothing at all. Alec always though that kind of gesture stupid.

“I can't read minds,” he answers, getting up and into a sitting position.

“Wit, I like that in a guy,” he replies and Alec rolls his eyes.

“It's too early to start flirting,” he says and grabs the guy's arm. “Help me up.”  
It still hurts like hell and he has the feeling he's going to throw up. The guy is small and his arms thin, but he has enough strength to hold Alec up. Thank the gods for small favours.

“So, my car?” the guy asks and Alec says yes, because nodding would cause a new wave of nausea.

~+~  
He leans his head against the cold window glass and lets the guy talk. The radio plays Queen. Alec recognises Freddie's voice. He doesn't know what song it is and he thinks he should, but he can't muster up the energy to care.

“It's not that bad, I'm sue your mom is going to patch you up just fine,” the guy says and Alec does feel better. In fact he feels better with every passing minute.  
When they park outside the house, he is still wet and covered in blood, but his headache is gone.

“Thanks,” he says, grabbing the handle, but doesn't open the door yet.

“No problem. I like to kick stupid douchebag ass,” the guy answers.

“You wanna come in?” Alec asks, because he feels like he has to say something and this stranger maybe saved his life, he definitely saved his ass and his bike and the cash he still has on him.

“Who's flirting now?” the guy replies and Alec laughs. It doesn't hurt. “Nah, I'm good.”

“Okay, thanks anyway.”  
The guy nods and Alec opens the door.

~+~  
It's still raining, the metal of his bike feels slippery under his fingers. He takes a deep breath. His mom will flip out, but there is nothing he can do about it.  
It wasn't even his fault anyway.

~+~  
His mom does flip out in her own cool and controlled way. She patches him up in silence, but there is nothing too bad, he was sure the cut on his hand was deeper, but it's just a minor thing.  
She drives him to the hospital anyway, so they can make sure there isn't any damage they can't see.  
He is fine, except for the cut.

“You got lucky,” the doctor says and his mom nods. He nods too and says thanks and goodbye and broods a bit in the car on their way back home.  
He feels like he's missing something here, something important, but he's too tired to drag it up from the abyss that is his brain right now.  
The only thing he cares about is his bed and that's where he stays asleep for hours.

  
Three  
 _The boy Crush_

~1~  
Crush is minding his own business, because he usually is minding his own business, it's just safer to live that way, when he sees the three guys rounding in on that kid on the bike. Usually Crush would still mind his own business, because, duh three guys and a kid with a bike he doesn't know, but he had a bad day and is itching to kick someone's ass. Besides it's never wrong to help people. It's good for the karma. He figures he has to pay the karma gods once in a while.  
So, that's why he finds himself kicking some guys' asses and driving the kid home. Because it really is a kid. A boy not older than seventeen maybe. Kind of cute in a boyish way.  
The moment he stops the car in front of the house he feels a tingling on his skin and smiles. He hopes it looks reassuring and not creepy.  
His karma gods seem to be on his side in full force.

~+~  
On the drive home to his apartment he's constructing a plan to get closer to the guy he rescued. He needs to get into that house and find the jar. He could feel the jar's pull. Maybe this time it would be the right one. There can't be that many left out there.  
He throws his keys and the jacket on the sofa upon entering and goes to the kitchen to make some tea. The coffee is gone for three days and he forgot again to buy some. His life so freaking hard. It was really easier when he was living with the dead girl and her freaky cat.  
Sometimes he really misses the dead girl and even the cat, but his life isn't one he can easily share with someone. Not even a zombie-girl. Maybe especially not a zombie-girl.  
The tea is hot and spicy and when he wants to add sugar he has to find out that he doesn't have any either. Great.  
He sits down at the kitchen table and stares out of the window without really seeing anything.  
Maybe he'll just stalk that boy for a while and then bump into him on his way in or out of a coffee shop or something.  
The simple plans are always the best.

~+~  
Crush is no ninja. It's a sad fact of his life. He wishes sometimes he were one instead of, well, instead of him, but you can't really choose which family you are born into. So, there. Nothing to be done about being who he is. Or at least nothing to be done about who he is now. He is sure his father didn't think Crush would turn out how he turned out, but then his father never really had much of a imagination.  
The boy sees him in a book store and just comes over. Crush didn't even notice he was there. Funny how life works sometimes.

“Hey,” the boy says and gives Crush nearly a freaking heart attack.

“Jesus! You could warn a guy or are you stalking me?” he asks to cover it up. He puts the book he was leafing through (Edges) aside and looks at the boy.

“Sorry, but you really don't seem to be frightened type.”

“What kind of type do I look like then?”

The boy rolls his eyes. “The flirty type.”

“Nah,” Crush answers and it's a lie. “It's only you.”

The boy smiles. “So, I saw you standing here, reading a book and though, hey isn't that the guy who saved my ass?”

“You were right and it's a good thing I saved that ass, it's a great ass,” Crush answers, grinning.

The boy blushes a bit. “Anyway. I wanted to say thanks.”

“What? No coffee or cake? I am very disappointed,” Crush says.

The boy smiles. “I guess I can buy you a coffee.”

“Great. Let me pay for this first,” Crush replies and takes Edges with him anyway. It sounds like something he would like to read.

~+~  
The boy's name is Alec and he is in fact seventeen and just broke up with his girlfriend. Which doesn't mean that Crush couldn't charm his way into his pants. Sex is always kind of easy when you're in the middle of it and if you don't want anything back and Crush likes to make feel people good during sex, mostly because he gets off on it.

“The funny thing is that I am totally okay, you know? I thought when they kicked me. I am sure I would have a broken rib or something,” Alec says, taking a sip of his coffee. There is a lot of sugar and caramel syrup in it. You can hardly call it coffee. The coffee-gods would cry if they'd knew.  
Hmm, Crush thinks, he didn't actually want to heal the guy on their way back to Alec's house, but it happened anyway. That more than anything else, even more than the delicious tingly feeling he had, tells him that he should stick around for a while. At least until he has this all figured out or has the heart-jar in his hands. Whatever comes first.

“I guess you were just lucky.”

“Yeah that's what my mom and the doctor said too,” Alec answers, but he isn't looking at Crush, he's staring at something that isn't there.

“You okay?” Crush asks, not because he thinks that Alec isn't, it's more about how he doesn't like when people space out in his presence.

“Yeah, “ Alec answers with a smile as he turns his mud-green huh? eyes back to Crush.

“You sure?”

“Yeah, I guess this was just...I don't know. Not something that happens a lot to me, you know?”

“What, being robbed?”

“They didn't even get the money or the bike. I think they just wanted to beat someone up and I was there.”

“Wrong place wrong time then.”

“Maybe, but you were there too, so maybe you were at the right place at the right time,” Alec answers and Crush knows he doesn't mean anything by it, but it makes his stomach do something stupid anyway.

“Ah, I see this is your cunning way to get into my pants!” he says and Alec chokes on his sip of coffee.

“You're a total jerk,” Alec replies when the couching dies down.

“You have no idea,” Crush says.

~+~  
The surprising thing about Alec is that he is a kid but still kind of cool to hang out with. Not that Crush is so much older, but most 23 year old guys don't hang out with kids of seventeen. Except for people who have younger siblings maybe. Not that Crush would know anything about that. He never had any siblings. He guesses after his dad had one heir he didn't need another one. Maybe his dad should have planned for everything, but as stated before his dad never had any imagination. On the other hand maybe the whole thing was a win or fail situation in the first place. Who knows? Crush certainly doesn't. He just didn't have the time to go over all of his dad's journal entries. They were so freakishly boring most of the time.  
So he hangs out with Alec a lot, mostly they go for coffee or see movies on Crush's old couch in the small living room.  
Alec seems to like the apartment enough and he always brings food. Crush maybe kind of really likes him.

~+~  
 _You can never forget that most people are a means to an end._ It stares at Crush in his dad's tiny tidy handwriting.  
He shuts the book and looks at the ceiling. He has to admit that he lived his life like that. Even when he was living with the dead girl, with Marta his brain supplies helpfully, even then he was hiding in her house. He was hiding there because she was dead, because he knew no one would find him there. Not with the freaking sigil on the door.  
The thing is that he doesn't like being like his father. He doesn't like it one bit.  
He never wanted his father's life and that's why he's here and trying to find every freaking one of the heart-jars even if he only needs _the_ heart-jar. The one and only. The mother heart-jar. Or whatever it is called. They should have made a picture of it and buried it deep, _and a map with an x on the floor would be very handy too_ , his inner demon mocks. Oh, shut the fuck up, Crush thinks, closing his eyes.

~2~  
Alec is singing something under his breath when Crush stops the car in front of his house. He waves to get Alec's attention and as he succeeds he opens the car door.

“Hey,” Alec says, getting in.

“Hey, what are you listening to?”

“The Wolf,” Alec says, putting the iPod away.

“I hope you don't mean the book...” Crush answers, starting the car again. He has no idea why he is still hanging out with Alec; maybe because he didn't see the heart-jar yet, maybe because he doesn't like being like his father.

“It's not that bad,” Alec says into his thoughts.

“It is that bad and you know it.”

Alec huffs between amused and frustrated. “So, what should I listen to then, oh god of the good and sensible books?”

“For one: you should actually read the books, you know? That's why they're books.”  
Alec rolls his eyes again. He does that a lot and the disturbing thing is that Crush doesn't find it disturbing or annoying at all. He should. He knows he should. This is so not good. “For the other,” he continues ignoring the eye-roll, “Edges.”

“That vampire-thing?” Alec asks with a curl to his mouth that isn't a real smile. It's a bit of a mockery really, but it makes Alec look kind of forbidden and not as young and innocent as he usually looks.

“Yes, the vampire-thing. It is brilliantly written.”

“Is that so?” There is that mockery again in his voice. It curls around Crush's nerves and doesn't let go. It sinks its teeth into the tender parts of him and stays there for hours. Crush wonders if Alec is even aware of it.  
Probably not.

“Yeah, it is. I'm going to sit you down and read it to you one of these days.”

“I can't wait,” Alec answers.

~+~  
Crush isn't exactly nervous when Alec calls him and asks if he wants to come over. He doesn't do nervous anymore, but there is this restless energy around him. This is it, he thinks.  
This is the night he can go and search for the heart-jar. And when he finds it he can move on. Into another city.  
The thing is he doesn't really want to. He didn't want to leave Marta either. Sometimes it's hard to live a nomad life.  
Home being everywhere and nowhere at the same time. It's freedom, of course it is, but even freedom comes with a price-tag attached.

~+~  
He parks the car and gets out, because there is no sense in being stupid and melancholy now. He knocks on the door and the tingling intensifies a million times. It's like something is calling to him, is singing in his veins. This could be the right one he thinks. His demon laughs. Crush ignores it. It can laugh all it wants.

“Hey, so my parents aren't home,” Alex says as Crush is following him into the kitchen.

“I'm scandalized,” Crush gasps.

“Don't get any ideas,” Alec answers. Crush really likes the easy banter between them. He likes how Alec just doesn't freak out about all the inappropriate comments he makes all the time.

“My first words this evening weren't 'My parents aren't home'” Crush gives back.

“I said: Hey, so my parents aren't home,” Alec says. “Please quote me correctly. If I should die and you quote me like this it would sound like I was heads over heels for you.”

“Sugar, you are heads over heels for me,” Crush answers and that gets him another eye-roll.

“Wanna coffee or juice?”

“Coffee will be fine.”

“You forgot to buy some, haven't you?” Alec asks. Crush can't see his face right now as he is busy with the coffee-maker, but he just knows Alec is grinning.

“You can't prove anything.”

~+~  
They end of on the couch watching Shaun of the Dead.

“I wonder,” Alec says into the silence, “why there aren't any movies about zombies?”

“We are watching a movie about zombies,” Crush answers.

“Yeah, no. I mean we are watching a movie about a bunch of humans trying to get away or survive or whatever from zombies. This movie isn't about the zombies.”

“Right. Who would want to watch such a movie and what would it be about anyway?” Crush asks, playing the devil's advocate.

“I have no idea, but I would watch it. I bet it's hard to be a zombie, you know? People are out to kill you and you only want to live your undead, rotting life in peace and have some meat once in a while and hang out with all the other cool zombies.”

“Maybe they don't rot and don't eat brains, you know?” Crush answers.

“Maybe, so they're just undead and what?”

“Feel nothing.”

“Wow, that's kind of creepy and sad,” Alec says, turning a bit to look at Crush. He looks so freaking young, Crush thinks.

“Yeah. It would be, wouldn't it?”

Alec nods. “It could still be a great movies.”

~+~  
Crush doesn't find the heart-jar that evening, but to be honest he doesn't really look for it either. The tingly feeling stays with him on the way back home, as does Alec's laugher and the easy banter and them being them.  
He takes a long shower when he comes home and then opens his dad's journal again on a random page.  
 _Seems like the boy is normal. Don't know if that is a failure yet. Maybe the other has to get stronger to take over._  
Maybe not. Crush has really no idea if the experiment was a success or not in his father's eyes. He is not a normal child, but he isn't what his dad wanted – or the people who paid him for this shit either.  
When it comes down to it, maybe not even his dad knew that. He is thinking about reading on, but in the end he doesn't. He closes the book and curls up on the bed and listens to the demon telling him gruesome fairy tales until he drifts off to sleep.

~+~  
Crush was never afraid of the demon inside him. Never. A long time he didn't even know that the voice inside his head was something that other people didn't have. It was just so normal to hear it laugh or tell stories or whisper secrets.  
Maybe he should have been freaked out later when he found out, but by then he was so used to it that it really didn't matter. It's not all bad to share your body with a demon. He figures it's a bit like sharing a body with an unborn twin.  
You don't know any other way to live your life, so you don't want to change it.  
The problem is that the demon is dying and well, as a result of that Crush is too.~3~  
Maybe there was a time-window to get this all straightened out, but it just flew by.

“So, I have this thing,” Alec says out of the blue, not looking at Crush.

“A thing? Like a sexual crisis thing?” he asks, stealing a french fry from Alec's plate.

“No, more like a heart in a jar thing,” Alec answers, trying to sound nonchalantly but failing.

“A heart in a jar?”

“Yes, or that's what my grandmother says it is. A heart in a jar. She has no idea what it's for, but I think you might know,” Alec says and he does look at Crush then.

“Me?”

“Yes, you because you have some of them as well.”

“Were you looking through my stuff?” he asks, taking another fry from Alec's plate.

“I stumbled upon them. They aren't exactly hidden, you know.”

“They are in my bedroom.”

“I was curious what it looks like?”

“You wanted to check out how good my bed is?” Crush asks, stealing another fry; he should have got some himself.

Alec smacks his fingers lightly. “I didn't want to check out how good your bed is.” He rolls his eyes again. “And stop deflecting.”

“I'm not. I think you checking out my bedroom is a thing we should talk about in length.”

“You would.” Alec shoves the plate over the table and takes a sip of his soda. “Go on, eat it. I know you want to.”

“Is it only me or did that sound dirty?” Crush asks.

“It's only you. And when we're done here, we're going to talk about the heart-jar and why you have so many of them.”

“I don't think I owe you an explanation,” Crush answers.

Alec's face falls for a moment. “You are right. You don't. I thought you maybe wanted to.”  
Crush feels like he just kicked a fucking puppy. He sighs. He does want to talk about the heart-jars. He wants to tell Alec everything what he knows and what they are used for and why he needs them all, but he honestly doesn't know if it's such a good idea.  
There are people out there who are looking for the jars too and Crush's only advantage here is the demon inside him, the demon that is dying and dragging Crush with him into the abyss.

“Drink your soda,” he says and Alec smiles at him.

~+~  
This might be one of the worst ideas he's ever had, but he guesses it's too late now to think about it. Or back out of the whole deal.  
Crush feels the demon nod inside his head. The demon agrees with everything now, because it doesn't want to die. It knows that it will when Crush will, but maybe it's the other way around. Maybe Crush will when the demon does. No one ever tried this whole demon and boy fusion thing before, so there isn't a manual to how to live with your demon. In a literal sense that is.  
Alec opens the door and Crush's veins are singing again, but maybe it's the demon's veins. In the end it doesn't really matter either way. Crush and the demon are one thing at times. More often than not, actually.  
He follows Alec to his bedroom and leans on the door-frame watching as Alec gets the jar. It looks like all the others, but it sings to him.

“So,” Alec says holding it against the light of the window. “This is it. A heart-jar.”

“Can I have it?” Crush asks.

“Sure,” Alec answers easily and hands it over without knowing that he just gave it away for good. “It's locked,” Alec adds.

“I know. It always is. You have to find the body to unlock it.”

“I don't think I want to know any more,” Alec answers with a wry smile.

“That's good,” Crush says, “I don't really want to tell you any more.” He puts the jar on the nearest surface and makes his way over to where Alec stands close to the bed.

“Hey. I didn't mean it. I want to know what it is for.”

“Magic,” Crush says and Alec's eyes go wide. Crush doesn't think it's because of the word, he is in fact sure it isn't because of the word. It has most likely more to do with his eyes changing from his human grey to purple. There are things only the demon can do and magic, well, real and otherworldly magic is one of them.

“Magic,” Alec whispers and his hand finds its way to Crush's jaw. It's always so easy to do that when he lets the demon do it.

“And if I tell you it will change your life.”

“You already did,” Alec says and that is something Crush doesn't want to hear. The demon recoils from it as well. But only for a moment, only a second. The demon isn't weak like Crush is sometimes and that is a good thing. In this case it's a good thing.  
There is another brief moment of hesitation – the demon's, his own, sometimes it's hard to tell, hard to separate, it doesn't matter – before he can feel Alec's lips on his. The kiss is soft and shy and something inside Crush breaks a bit with it. The demon howls and then it's over.  
Alec looks confused for a second and then falls on the bed, deeply asleep.  
Crush never felt so sorry to have to do that. To have to steal all the memories from a person's heart and brain.  
But there are things you have to do when you're running, erasing any link to your person is one of these things.  
That of course only works on people who are alive, so...Marta could be a problem. On the other hand she's a zombie-girl that never leaves her house.  
He takes the jar and leaves the house in silence. No one will miss him here.

~+~  
He feels like a dick the whole way home, but the demon is whispering about survival and Crush knows that the demon is right.  
The demon usually is when it comes to these simple matters.  
The jar feels heavy in his lap, but it's warm and alive and beating with his own heart in tandem. This might be the one. He only has to find the body then to unlock it and get to the heat.  
It sounds like an impossible thing to do and humans on their own could spend years or even their whole lives trying and never getting anywhere close, but he isn't a human being, not completely at least. He is something more. Besides the markings on the jar are telling the heart's story. You only have to know how to read them.  
And the demon knows, because the demon is older than humanity itself.

  
Four  
 _The demon inside_

  
~1~  
Marta is trying to focus on something other than the smell of coffee when Mika jumps onto her lap and just curls up to sleep. Maybe Marta thinks, maybe that is a good idea.  
She should try to sleep too. She is feeling sleepy constantly now which is a new thing.  
Very, very new. She vaguely remembers that she used to sleep when she was still alive and then there are the phases when she’s kind of comatose, but aside from that? No sleeping pattern to talk of at all.  
So, this is new and a bit scary.  
She has no idea what she could do about it. After all there isn’t a doctor you can just ask about these things when you are in fact undead.  
The coffee smells really delicious and she nearly takes a sip, but then remembers that she gets violently sick when she eats or drinks, so she pushes it away.  
Mika makes an unhappy noise and bores her claws into her leg. It doesn’t hurt, but it’ll look nasty for the next few years. There really is not much advance in the healing power department when you are a zombie.  
Well, being undead isn’t that much fun either. She misses Crush. He might’ve been a secretive freak, but he was fun to hang out with and when she’s honest for a minute here, she is a secretive freak too.  
She tried to make friends and fit in, but it’s really hard to go with people for drinks or lunch or whatever when you don’t eat. And it’s pretty impossible to keep up dates and appointments when you’re comatose.  
So, friendships happen on the internet and it’s more than she had before Crush invaded her life, but it doesn’t seem to be enough now anymore.

“Sometimes I wish I never met him at all,” Marta says to Mika The Cat and Mika makes a noise that could mean anything, but Marta chooses it to mean she is right.  
Cats are really easy to be around with. They just seem to understand her. Or only Mika.

~+~  
Alec feels groggy and like someone stole something from him, but he doesn’t know what or why he feels so groggy in the first place. On any other day he would think that it was a hangover, but he’s pretty sure he wasn’t drinking alone while his parents were gone. The reason being that he never drinks alone. It’s just no fun.  
He rolls on his side and reads the clock. Ten o’clock. Well, at least he was sleeping okay. The blinds are drawn, he doesn’t remember doing it. In fact he doesn’t remember much of last night at all. He was meeting someone, he thinks, or maybe he wanted to and just got dumped or- he has no idea, but there was Shaun of the Dead. He watched it, he is pretty sure of that.  
He gets up carefully, because his head feels like it’s stuffed with cotton and makes his way to the kitchen to get some coffee. While it brews he goes to the living room to check if he really watched Shaun of the Dead. It’s in the player, so the answer to that mystery is yes.  
One glass on the coffee table. He was alone then. Why the hell would he watch a movie alone in the living room? Why not stick to his room and laptop? Was he on drugs? He was not, he knows he was not because drugs like drinking are no fun alone.  
An X-File then. Unsolved mysteries part eleven or something. He runs a hand through his hair and yawns. Whatever. Maybe he was just a freak again last night. The coffee smells delicious and he walks over to the kitchen to pour some.  
The rest isn’t too important right now.

~+~  
“What do you mean the heart-jar has no key we can dig up?” Crush asks. He is very aware that he doesn’t need to talk out loud for his demon to hear him, but it makes him (funnily enough) feel more sane if he does it.

_It means that the key isn’t there. I can’t find it with the usual method. No buried body, no key._

“This is a real heart-jar, right? I mean I could feel the tingling and stuff. You were feeling it too.”

_Yes,_ the demon says patiently. Sometimes the demon is a bit like a mom. _Also, for the record? There aren’t any fake heart-jars._  
Crush has the urge to roll his eyes at the demon, but the demon would only see it if he was looking into a mirror, which he is not.

“Okay, okay. So what does that mean?” Crush sits down on a park bench and looks the jar over. There are feathers and pearls, bones and pieces of leader and glass on it. Everything he knows should be on and around a heart-jar. This is one. The heart inside beats in a very slow rhythm like it wants out, now that someone who can open the jar was found. Found the jar, or maybe the jar found him. You can never be really sure how magic works. It happens when and where it wants to and has its own rules. You can try to bend and control it, but it’ll always be wild. And that’s the beauty of it all he thinks.

_Yes, it is,_ the demon says and it sounds wistful.  
Sometimes Crush is really sorry that the demon has to be here in a human body it doesn’t even have for itself. He thinks that he himself has all the advantages of this deal and the demon has none. Stuck in a human body that was programmed to die.  
This whole thing is not an accident, not an unfortunate event. Not something that just happened. It was planned by people who wanted a weapon they could control easily. As if.  
 _Humans,_ the demon says, _are never easily controlled._

“True enough and we see how this try ended.”

_Badly._ The statement is delivered with a satisfaction that would be scary, but Crush knows his demon and besides he feels the same satisfaction.

“So, what are we going to do now?” he asks, leaning his head against the edge of the bench and stares at the endless sky.

_We need to find the heart's owner like we always do._

“But how do we find them if you have no clue at all?”

_Oh, I have one,_ the demon says.

“I thought you said there is no body, also no key?”

_That only can mean the person is still alive,_ it sounds like it’s smirking.

Crush sits up straight. “No fucking way,” he says as the pieces start to fall together.

~2~  
Alec is staring at his bedside table without really knowing why. It is kind of creepy how he is sure he lost something. Something important.  
His mom gives him looks and his girlfriend of the week is pissed off constantly now because he isn’t listening to her.

“Alec!” she says and nudges his ribs not too gently.

“I am listening,” he answers.

“You are not. You have no idea what I was talking about.”

“Nails, clothes? Gossip?”

She looks pissed off and stands up. He knows he really should care, but he doesn’t. Not right now. He has no idea why he thought going out again would be a good idea. Dating isn’t what he needs right now. What he needs right now is to get laid.  
“I don’t think this is working out,” she says and he nods, absentminded. “Alec!”

“I am on your side here, Dee, I too think this isn’t working out. I don’t think we could be friends, though,” he answers.  
She throws his lamp against the wall. He sighs, why the hell does he always get it on with the violent girls?

“Uhm…” she says. “Sorry?”

“Yeah, no problem…” he answers, a bit lost.  
There are things in Alec’s life that are just too weird.

~+~  
Marta meets Alec because she stumbles and spills her coffee onto his shirt. It could be the beginning of a wonderful friendship or a cheesy love-story.  
It’s an adventure instead, but they don’t know it yet.  
Alec likes to hang out with her in the park and in bookstores and never wonders why she doesn’t eat or drink or gets tired.  
She likes him and when she brings him home to her current apartment Mika doesn’t scratch out his eyes, so Marta thinks that is a good sign.

“So, you have an awful big collection of zombie movies,” he says, leaning into the cushions.

“I like them.”

“Did you ever think about the fact that zombie movies aren’t about zombies but about the survivors instead?” He asks her with a side-glance.

“Yeah, I did in fact. You know, I think it’s because it’s all about the gore and how many people you could kill in a movie.”

“You mean all zombie movies are about the body count in the end?”

“Seems so.”

“Hmm…” Alec answers.

Marta misses Crush suddenly painfully. He at least knew what she was, he knew who she was. She wants to tell people sometimes. She wants to tell Alec sometimes. Something about him makes her want to trust him with her secrets.  
Mika makes a noise and nudges her head against Alec’s hand. Well, she is not the only one here who seems to trust Alec, she thinks fondly.

~+~  
 _I think it’s a shame to make the boy instable, but if the experiment fails this is the self-destruct button._ His dad wrote this on his third birthday. He was nothing more than a kid then and his dad never felt anything for him. He faked it well enough, though.  
Crush doesn’t know why he still reads the journals. Why he still searches for something. Anything that would make this less…painful, somehow.  
It’s a stupid thing to hope for. His father is dead. There are no answers in the tiny handwriting either. Only descriptions of a past Crush wasn’t really a part of. At least not like he thought he was. They always lived in separated worlds. The thing was that his dad always knew that and Crush, well, he was stupid enough not to find out until he was sixteen.

_Your father was a great liar_ The demon says and there is no inflection in his voice whatsoever. Sometimes the demon is like that, a faceless, emotionless thing. Not really a part of Crush, but not really not a part of him either.  
It’s hard to breathe in those moments of realisation and he had a few of them over the years.

“Yeah, he was. He did a great job of pretending to care for me.”

_He cared for you,_ the demon says.

Crush laughs. “He cared for his weapon, for the part of me that is _you_ ”

_We are one_ , the demon says, _we’ve always been._

“And we never will be anything else,” Crush answers and he isn’t feeling sorry for himself anymore.  
This is his life and it’s the only one he has. The only one he ever knew how to lead. He is comfortable in his skin, the demon is comfortable in his skin and maybe it is time that he acknowledges that it’s their body.

_You are a good host,_ the demon says and Crush smiles. He is sure the demon can feel it on their lips.

~3~  
 _‘The blood felt stale and wrong somehow in his mouth, but he could not pinpoint why. It never used to taste like that. It always tasted like honey, the remembered smell of hay and summer flowers. This tasted rotten – and not in a good way. It wasn’t the sweet cloying taste of too much sugar or the damp scent of earth, it was something darker. Like a heart decomposing.’_  
Alec stares at the lines and tries to remember. There is something he needs to know. A half buried memory in his brain, maybe not half buried, maybe nearly rotten to nothing.  
He closes the book, he doesn't even know why he bought it in the first place. He doesn't read. He usually gets the audio-book.  
It feels like he heard the lines before. It's frustrating at the best of times, makes him stir crazy on some days.  
He's staring at the book as if it personally offended him when his mom throws a card on his lap.

“What?”

“Your grandmother is writing you. I don't get why she doesn't call like normal people,” mom answers on her way to the kitchen, looking through the rest of the mail.

He shakes his head. Well, because grandmother Samira is not what you would call a normal person in any sense. No grandmother who has dove-hearts in her fridge would qualify for a normal person in this kind of world. To be honest Alec is glad his grandmother is like she is. It would be even scarier if she should change all of a sudden.  
He picks the card up and turns it to read.  
 _Do you still have the heart-jar?_ is the first thing on the back. No hello, no 'how are you'. Grandmother Samira likes to get straight to the point, the thing is that he just doesn't get her point right now.  
He never had anything called a heart-jar. He doesn't even know what the hell that is supposed to be. And where you get it. It sounds ominous enough, though. His grandmother would know that.  
 _I have the feeling you lost it – or it was stolen._ she goes on. Oh, well, she always had dreams or whatever you call these kinds of things. So maybe the loss he is feeling, maybe it comes from the heart-jar not being where it is supposed to be. On his bedside-table.  
 _Your grandmother, Samira._ That's so typical her, Alec thinks. What the hell is he supposed to do with that kind of message?  
Well, one thing: call her.  
He gets up from the sofa and grabs the phone on his way to his room.

“Yeah?”

“Grandmother, this is Alec.”

“I know, I have caller ID,” she answers.

He suppresses a laugh. His grandmother, seriously. “I got your card and I have no idea what you are talking about.” Which isn't that new after all, but she does mostly sense when you know how to listen to her.

“What do you mean you have no idea what I am referring to? The heart-jar. We talked about it when you were here during summer vacation. Seriously you young people, so forgetful.”

“Grandmother, I would remember something like a heart-jar. It isn't an everyday thing I guess?”

“It is not. It is rare and powerful.” Her voice sounds grave when she says it.

“And I had it.”

“That's what you told me,” she answers.

“And how come I have no idea about any of this? I can't even remember talking about it or the day I got it or anything about it,” he says, frustration creeping into his voice.

“Because, my dear boy, you were cursed, or hexed, bewitched even.”

“Right...” he replies.

“I will send you something that makes you remember again.”

“Will there be dove-hearts in it?” he asks weary.

“Don't be silly, dove-hearts are only for all things considering love,” she replies and hangs up on him before he can ask more questions. Maybe that's better. Sometimes you just don't want to know what is in the stuff you're eating.  
He sure as hell doesn't want to know what grandmother Samira is going to put into her elixir. At least he'll know it be organic. That should count as a win.

~+~  
Alec looks positively green around the edges and if he knew she was a zombie, she would make a funny in-joke about it, but well. She is a bit concerned.

“You don't look so good,” she says, putting a mug of camomile tea in front of him. Her mother used to giver her the tea when she was feeling sick.  
He nods and pushes the mug as far away as it can get without falling from the table.

“I feel sick,” he answers, biting his lip.  
She waits for him to continue, because it is clear as day that he has something to say. The thing Marta isn't sure about is if she wants to know this. He takes a breath and closes his eyes. “My grandmother is a witch,” he states.

“Okay?”

“Uhm...aren't you going to laugh?” he asks.

“No. Carry on. I knew a witch once. They don't like it when you laugh at them. They take this shit very personal.”

“Okay...that was unexpected.”

“That's me,” she shrugs, even when he doesn't see it.

“I see,” he answers, opening his eyes. “I like that in a person.”

She smiles. “Good to know, so your grandmother is witch?” she prompts.

“Yeah, she is a witch and she told me I had something called a heart-jar, which seems to be a very powerful occult object? And that I lost it. The thing is that I have no memory whatsoever when it comes to the heart-jar. She also said that you have to give the jar away or it'll come back. It will find you, because it knows where it belongs to. Like a real heart, I guess. So in conclusion: a very powerful occult object found me and I somehow gave it away on my free will.”

“Is she mad at you that you lost it?” Marta asks.

Alec laughs. “No, she is not. I think she is glad it's gone. No one really knows what the heart-jars are for, but the creepy thing about them is that they are made with _human_ hearts. Someone cut open some poor bastard and got the heart out to make a heart-jar.”

Marta shivers just thinking about it. “That is creepy...”

Alec nods. “Yeah, it really is, whatever, the thing is that it choose me for some reasons and I mean, why? I have no interest in the occult or any powers.”

“Your grandmother is a witch.”

“That doesn't mean I am a witch too, or whatever the male equivalent is, you know?”

She nods. “So that's why you're looking all green?”

“No, it's the elixir my grandmother sent me. It tastes like you would imagine a witch-elixir to taste.”

“Like dead frogs and ginger?” she asks.

“Your brain is really kind of scary,” he answers with a laugh.

“Boy, you have no idea,” she says smiling.  
He gives her a look like he knows something. He doesn't know, he couldn't, could he?

“You have any vodka in the house?”

“I guess, but I don't think you should mix frogs and ginger with alcohol,” Marta answers.

“Life really isn't very fair, is it?” he says.  
She pats his knee.

~+~  
“You think it's Marta, don't you?” Crush says. He's lying on the floor of his apartment and staring at the ceiling, but not really seeing anything. His brain is working like mad, the demon's is too.  
The demon nods, Crush can feel it like a soft wave in his mind. Now that they have an understanding things are going even smoother. He barely feels the demon making a space for itself. It is just there, like a part of himself, it should maybe be a lot more scarier, but it isn't.  
“I think it's Marta, too. She is a girl that crawled out of her grave and she doesn't know why and how. I didn't think that a heart-jar could do that. I mean, usually the people stay dead and the hearts live on and on and on.”

_Not if someone did it wrong,_ the demon says.

“How could someone mess up such a spell in the first place? I mean, okay, there aren't any real descriptions, it's not like you take out the big bad book of evil cooking and making a delicious heart-jar, but still. You only start something like this when you're really desperate, don't you?”

_Humans_ , the demon says, shrugging. It's a soft sensation around Crush's ribs.  
It's not only that you have to kill someone who loves you for the heart-jar to work, no, you have to give away a part of your soul as well, or whatever you might want to call it. You have to maintain the balance. That's why Crush would never make a heart-jar. And then there is the small problem that no one loves him. Never ever did in fact.  
He doesn't dwell on it, it makes the temptation nonexistent. Maybe that's why he doesn't let people get close to him. It is safer that way.  
 _Once the ritual is done, you can live a normal life,_ the demon says. It's a whisper round his heart.

“I can never have a normal life. I am a we.” Crush answers softly and the demon laughs, delighted. It is an entirely new sound and Crush is surprised he likes hearing it.

  
Five  
 _The final cut_

~1~  
Marta has a bad feeling about the whole Alec is a witch thing to be honest for a second here. He should be able to feel that something is wrong with her, but he doesn’t say a word and he doesn’t act differently around her either. He is just Alec, hanging out on her couch and eating her food and not caring at all that she never does eat at all.

“You know,” he says and she nods her head to indicate she is listening. They’re in her kitchen that she only uses when he is here or to get Mika something to eat when the cat is too lazy to go out and hunt something down for dinner. “I think things are actually staring to come back to me,” he continues. His head is lying on her kitchen table and everything he says sounds a bit muffled by his hands and the tabletop.

“About the heart-jar?” she asks. She is intrigued by the whole magic thing, after all she is made of magic or with the help of magic, she really doesn’t think she is just one of God’s freak accidents. It would be a bit unfair and could make her mad at God for some time and she has time enough on her hands. If nothing else, she has time.

“Yes, about the heart-jar. So, grandmother said that I had to give it away on my own free will, right?”

“Yeah,” she answers, cutting tomatoes into perfect slices. Mika jumps on the table and curls up at the edge of it. The cat has far too many liberties, Marta thinks with a mental sigh.

“The thing is I would not. I know I wouldn’t do it, so someone had tricked me into it. Someone I knew. The thing is I still can’t really remember, but there are snippets of conversations I had with a guy. I wish I knew how he looked liked…” he trails off and Marta pushes the plate with the sandwich in his direction before she goes to the sink to wash her hands. There is tomato juice everywhere.

“So, you and that guy?” she asks carefully, towelling her hands.

Alec is sitting up and looking at the sandwich now. “Me and that guy what?”

“Were friends then?”

“Possibly. I have the feeling he was flirting with me. Unashamed and unabashed.”

Marta feels a stupid longing in her bones at his words. “I knew someone like that once. His name was Crush, if you believe it or not.”

~+~  
The name slams into his head and chest like a bullet and everything comes back at once. He clutches his skull, but it doesn’t help. It’s like a train wreck happening in his brain. A very violent one. If that makes any sense.  
At some level he’s aware that Marta is talking to him, but he can’t concentrate on her. He can only concentrate on the pictures in his brain, the words, the _feelings_ that go with every new second, every new scene.  
When it’s over, he’s lying panting on Marta’s kitchen floor. She is sitting beside him and looking freaked out.

“What happened? Are you okay? Will you be? Alec? Can you understand what I’m saying?” she asks, her voice is full of panic. He can’t blame her at all.

He groans. His head feels too full. “I am okay, I think.”

“Can you get up?” she wants to know.

He tries, but his body doesn’t cooperate with him on that one. “No,” he states the obvious.

“Oh, okay…okay. I’ll just go over to the living room and get you a pillow and a blanket, okay?” She stands up before he can even answer her, but it’s just as well. A pillow would be nice. His head doesn’t like the cold hardwood floor at all. She’s back a minute or two later, the apartment isn’t really big. “Here we go,” she says, carefully holding his head and then laying it down on the pillow.  
He takes a careful breath and then another and another. She is sitting cross-legged beside him, but looking less freaked out right now. That’s good, he thinks, because he is freaked out as hell.  
He closes his eyes and tries to make sense of everything that is now in his brain. It felt like too much a few minutes ago, but the memories are trying to take the empty spaces back they were stolen from. He can see Crush’s face with vibrant violet eyes, looking kind of sad at him on the insides of his eyelids.

“I know him too,” Alec says, it’s only a whisper.

“Who?” Marta asks confused.

“Crush,” Alec answers.

“Oh!”

“Yeah, oh. He stole my memories of him.”

“Maybe he wanted to protect you,” she answers softly.

“He didn’t steal your memories of him,” he gives back.

“No…”

“Maybe because you didn’t have a heart-jar he wanted really badly,” he says bitter. Wow this conclusion sucks a lot. He liked Crush, he liked him a lot and that bastard has the guts to kiss him (he can feel it on his lips still, now in full force because the memory couldn’t fade) and then steal his heart-jar and his memory of everything that included Crush. What a bastard. Fuck.

“Maybe,” she answers.

~+~  
Truth is she isn’t sure it was only that. It could be. It could be that Crush didn’t do anything to her because she didn’t have anything he wanted, wow, that isn’t a thought that is too pleasant either. But maybe it has more to do with the fact that she is dead. Maybe he _couldn’t_ do anything to her memories. Her brain doesn’t function like a living humans, she is pretty sure. Her whole body might be held together with only magic and pure will. What does she know? Nothing.

“I’m sorry,” Alec says and she looks down at him.

“For what?”

“For being such an idiot. You liked him, obviously.”

“You liked him too, he was your friend,” she answers.

“Or that’s what I thought at least,” Alec says, closing his eyes again. Like it’s maybe too much to be looking at her now. She grabs his hand and he squeezes it briefly before he drags it to his lips and brushes a kiss against her knuckles.  
It’s strange. She was never kissed before and she doesn’t think she ever thought about it much either, but now her breath catches in her dead lungs and her free hand balls into a fist in her lap. She doesn’t know what to do.

~+~  
Alec always knew that she was special. He just didn’t know why and now that he has the memories, and more importantly the feelings about the heart-jar back, now he knows why.  
She feels like the heart-jar to him. The pull is the same. He opens his eyes to look at her. Her dark hair falling into her face and onto her shoulders, her eyes are wide open as she stares at him.

“It was your heart-jar,” he says.

“Oh…” she answers, still looking like she’s frozen in time and she is, he realises. She isn’t a normal girl.

“The heart inside is yours. He stole your heart from me,” Alec says and even to his own ears it sounds hysterical.

“What are we going to do now?”

“Get it back of course. If he has your heart-jar we need it back. It doesn’t belong to him anyway.”

“You gave it away on your own free will,” she gives back.

He is still holding her hand and doesn’t think he lets go of it any time soon. “I’m sure the heart will recognise me anyway.”  
She nods as if she understands what he’s talking about. But not even Alec knows what he’s talking about. He is on his own in this. His grandmother can only do so much for him, for them now, but he thinks he has to call her anyway.

~2~  
Grandmother Samira is not amused, but she seldom is when stuff is going south.

“You found the dead girl’s heart?” she asks.

“I found the dead girl, her name is Marta, grandmother,” he answers patiently. It’s never good to rush her. She takes that very personal.

“I found out how you open a heart-jar,” she says and he waits. “You have to find the body of the person the heart belonged to. Normally that is tricky enough as these jars are very old. You have to find the bone that opens the jar and let me tell you something it’s never the same bone and you can only use it once.”

“So, you can’t keep the key?”

“No, when you used the heart-jar once, it closes up again and you can’t use it anymore, unless you dig out another bone. Whatever. You can use a heart-jar only three times anyway it seems. I really have no idea why people are going to so much trouble just for a bit of magic,” she huffs annoyed.

“I bet it isn’t only just a _bit_ of magic, grandmother,” he answers and she laughs out loud.

“Well, I admit, it is a bit of very strong magic and if you’re desperate enough, well…you’ll have to be really desperate to make one and then to use it.”

“What do you think Crush wants with it?”

“I have no idea, I don’t even know if he is a human being like the rest of us after the stuff you told me, Alec,” she answers.

He exhales slowly. “He will come for Marta, won’t he?”

“She is the key that opens the heart-jar,” his grandmother says. Her voice sounds like gravel.

“Will she die?”

“I can’t say. She didn’t before.”

“You think that was on purpose or an accident?” Alec asks, because he was thinking about this a lot lately.

“And again, Alec, I can’t say.”

He sighs, says his goodbyes and hangs up.  
Well, he knows a bit more now, but he still has no idea what to do about the whole dead-girl thing and the heart-jar and Crush.  
And it doesn’t help that Crush is a recurring character in his dreams lately.

~+~  
Crush really hates the smell of blood, but the demon seems to like it.

_It makes me feel alive_ it says into the soft panting that is the only noise in the room. Crush ignores it, he needs to concentrate on the spell. He needs to find Marta and to find out what bone he has to cut out of her body to open the jar. Good thing she doesn’t feel much of anything in the first place anymore.  
He falls to his knees as the spell takes hold of him. The images crashing into his head. The only thing that holds him up is the demon. The strength he borrows from it, or maybe he doesn’t borrow it, maybe it’s his too.

_It is_ , the demon whispers.

“I’m okay,” he says after a while collapsing onto the blood-stained floor of his apartment. He feels the demon nod. They both feel a lot weaker than the last time they did this. “We’re running out of time,” Crush says.

_Yes._

~+~  
Marta listens carefully to Alec and then sits there on her couch and tries not to panic.

“He’ll cut me open to get to a bone to open the heart-jar?” she asks, she only wants to clarify that part again.

“If he gets the chance,” Alec answers fiercely.

She smiles at him. He’ll try to protect her, but honestly what can he do against Crush, who apparently isn’t really human? He isn’t like her either, but that doesn’t mean anything at all.  
“I won’t feel the pain,” she says.

“You can’t know that. The heart-jar is yours. Maybe you can be a normal girl again if we just put you back together,” Alec replies. It seems to her he was thinking about it a lot.

“You really shouldn’t get too attached to me.”

“Too late now. I had the jar since I was thirteen. Your heart called out to me back then and it kept calling to me. You kept calling to me,” Alec says, not really looking at her.

“You realise that I am a hundred something years old? Right? And that I am in fact dead?”

“What does it matter?”

“I can’t feel a thing,” she says reasonably, because he is only seventeen and this isn’t a Meyer novel. Not that Marta read them or anything.

“We can fix you,” he answers.

“You don’t know that. Maybe I will feel it when he cuts my bones from my body because the magic lets me, maybe I will die for good then, maybe-“

“It will fix you. He will fix you. I won’t let anything happen to you, Marta,” Alec interrupts her. His voice is firm, but he still looks every inch the seventeen year old human boy he is. This is such a mess she thinks and she doesn’t want for him to get in trouble because of her. And she tells him that as well.  
“It’s not only because of you, you know? I really liked him and he betrayed me and I want to know why he did it. I need to know why he is willing to do all these horrible things.”  
She sighs, but nods, there is nothing she can do. She won’t make him leave if he doesn’t want to. She doesn’t think she can make him see things her way in the first place.  
Maybe he is young and maybe he doesn’t know what he is doing, but at least he is standing up for something and that is more than you can say for most people.  
Still, she thinks, such a freaking mess.

~+~  
To be honest Alec has no freaking idea what he is going to do. He only knows he needs to talk with Crush first, maybe they can figure something out. He knows it’s stupid to believe Crush has a honourable motif here, but well, Crush was his friend if he wanted to be one or not. Alec spent days brooding about this and he doesn’t think Crush knew that Alec had a heart-jar when they first met. Alec is sure Crush figured it out pretty fast after that, but the first time when Crush helped him (and healed his wounds- Alec is now sure of that), that first time that was Crush being a nice person.  
He has no idea how to find Crush, but Marta and grandmother Samira for that matter are sure Crush will find them.  
So there is nothing to do but to wait for Crush to come for Marta.  
Alec kind of hates it. He doesn’t like feeling so helpless and useless.  
But then, no one really does like to feel that way.

~3~  
Crush finds Marta in a small town he left a few months ago in a hurry and when she answers the door with a smile on her face he has a bad feeling about this whole thing.

It doesn’t get better when she steps aside saying: “I was waiting for you.”  
He makes his way into the apartment and Mika hisses at him from the sofa.

“I’m sorry,” Crush says, because he does feel sorry for what he is about to do.

“Why? I’m dead anyway, aren’t I?” she answers, shrugging.  
He feels like the biggest dick on earth. He is 23 years old, he shouldn’t have to decide if he breaks a girl’s bones (undead or not) or die if he doesn’t.

“I wish you wouldn’t remember me,” he answers.

She laughs humourless. “I am not your problem.”  
Well, fuck. Alec, he thinks and just knows that the mojo wasn’t strong enough.

_Impossible,_ the demon states.  
But nothing is impossible where a girl like Marta and a guy like Crush exist.

“Is he pissed off?” Crush asks, he doesn’t know why he cares right now. He shouldn’t.

“He said you stole my heart from him, Crush.”

“He’s in love with you?” Crush asks surprised.

She shrugs. “I guess.”  
Mika is still hissing and they are still standing in the living room, close to the small entry-hall. Marta brushes her dark hair behind her left ear and just looks at him. She waits, he realises. She waits for him to cut her open.

“You’ll have to lie down. Do you bleed a lot?”

“No, I don’t heal fast either. You think it will hurt? Mostly I don’t feel anything at all,” she answers.

“I have no idea. I never did this with a living being. They are usually rotting away when I take the bone to open the jar,” he replies.

“Hmm, okay. Just to be safe we should do it in the bathroom. Tiles are easier to clean.”

“Don’t you want to know why I’m doing this?” Crush asks, following her into the bathroom.

“No, but I do hope your reasons are good and noble.”  
Crush doesn’t know if saving your own life counts as a noble reason. Probably not.

~+~  
A part of Marta is terrified and another part is a bit thrilled. She doesn’t know what will happen, but living the life of a zombie isn’t too glamorous, so a change is a change.  
She somehow wishes she could make this easier on Alec who will not understand that she isn’t fighting this. But there is no way someone could understand what she’s doing who hasn’t lived a hundred years without feeling much of anything at all. Sometimes you just get tired of being a thing.  
She lies down on the tiles and is thinking about removing her clothes when the doorbell rings. Oh, right. Alec said he would maybe drop by today.

“That’s Alec,” she says.

“Fuck. I don’t think he will just go away if you don’t answer the door?”

“Probably not. I am not going out much. I’m sure you remember.”

“You moved into another town,” Crush answers.

She smiles. “Because of you. I moved and started, tried to have a life, because of you.”  
She is sure he doesn’t want to hear that right now.

Crush looks at her then and he looks sad she thinks. “You know. I am really sorry.”

The funny thing is that she knows he means it. “Just do it. He can’t break in.”  
Crush nods.

~+~  
Alec woke up with a bad feeling and with something that was close to being a pull in his veins. A remembered sensory overload as the memories rushed back.  
The pull of the heart-jar. And now Marta isn’t answering her door. She could be out grocery shopping because she likes to do that even if she doesn’t eat much. She likes to cook by smell and it always is delicious.  
He slides down the door and slings his arms around his knees. He’ll wait then until she comes back.  
Or he’ll kick the door in when she doesn’t answer her phone in the next five minutes he thinks. Yeah, that is a plan he can get behind.  
She may be pissed off at him for ruing her door, but well… Alec is sure she will get over it.  
It’s just that the pull is there in his veins and that it can only mean one thing: the heart-jar is close and if the heart-jar is close, Crush is too.  
He takes out the phone and calls her. Waits a few seconds, a minute. Listens to the phone ringing on the other side of the line.  
She doesn’t pick up and then he hears Mika scratch at the door. He gets up and is about to ram it with his body, he’s sure it’ll hurt like hell, when it opens.

~4~  
Crush has a split second to gather himself before he opens the door. It doesn’t really help. The shock on Alec’s face is more than he can take right now. He feels drained and sick and the only good thing is that Marta really doesn’t bleed much. His hands are relatively clean.

“What did you do?” Alec asks.

“What I had to,” Crush answers just before Alec crashes into him. He is on his back in a second. The hard floor cool under him. Alec staring him down. The demon laughs and then groans. They’re getting weaker by the minute.

“Where is she?” Alec yells.

“In the bathroom.”  
Crush can see the indecision like a flash on Alec’s face. Worry and rage and a lot of other feelings rushing by like a river. In the end Alex punches him, swears and gets up to go to Marta.  
The demon curses and Crush does too. He gets up as fast and careful as he can and doesn’t look back once.  
He makes it to the car, but only just so and when he’s in his apartment he collapses near the sofa.

~+~  
Marta feels totally calm as Alec crashes into the bathroom. She sees him kneeling down and looking shocked at her.

“It’s gonna be okay,” she says.

“How?” he answers. His voice full of anger and desperation.

“It’ll heal.”

He laughs hysterically. “Your body needs months for a simple scratch, Marta. He cut you open like a fish.”

“He needed a piece of my second rib,” she answers.

“And you didn’t fight him. You just let him cut you open,” he whispers.

She closes her eyes because she can’t look at him now. “I had to. I can’t die and he can,” she answers. She didn’t need to know why Crush did it, she didn’t need his explanation, but maybe Alec will need it. She is sure, actually, that Alec will need it once this is over. “You need to sew me back up,” she says.

“Okay…okay. I can do that. It’ll look crappy, I’m not good with a needle, but I’ll do it. Where are your needles and yarn?”

“In the kitchen, third drawer on the left. If you look from the window.”

“Okay,” he says, getting up. “Okay. Does it hurt?”

“Yeah,” she answers with a smile. It does hurt, but it’s something to feel, so she is thankful for it.

~+~  
Crush feels like every bone in his body is broken and knows that the demon doesn’t feel much better. They have to get this over with now before it’s too late.  
The ritual isn’t that complicated when you have it set up and Crush did set it up before he left. The demon insisted on it and it was good he did, Crush realises.  
He rolls onto his back and gets up carefully.

_We’re running out of time_ , the demon says as if Crush didn’t know that.

“I know!” It really doesn’t help that the demon feels offended at Crush’s tone, it’s a bit like being offended because you insulted yourself. Freaking confusing right now.

_This would’ve been easier with a witch to help us,_ the demon says.

“I know, but I told you we can’t risk it. I am sure They are watching all the freaking witches in the country,” he answers getting to his feet.

His body feels heavy, but that is the demon dying slowly. In two days he’ll be dead and Crush with him. They’re a timed self-destruct button. “Okay, let’s do this.”  
The demon nods.

~+~  
“And he told you all this while he was cutting you open?” Alec asks, his hands are gentle on her, even if he knows he doesn’t need to be, she doesn’t feel much of anything.

“Yeah, I guess he wanted me to know why he’s doing this.”

“Still not the best reason if you ask me,” Alec grumbles, finishing the stitches near her breasts. It looks awful, but at least her insides will stay where they’re supposed to stay.

“It wasn’t that bad, I guess,” she answers, shrugging a bit. It looks awkward as she’s still lying down.

“Can you get up?” he asks.

“No, I’ll just stay here and wait it out.”

“How long?”

“As long as it takes. Weeks maybe, or months, or years.”

“I’m going to get a cushion and the laptop,” he answers, because if they have to spend weeks in the bathroom together they’ll need the internet and a few movies.  
She laughs and the stitches dance dangerously. Alec really hopes they’ll hold.

~5~  
Marta isn’t sure she wants him to be here every day, talking to her, watching movies and making sandwiches in her kitchen.  
She sighs, she can’t make him go away either. She could tell him to get the fuck out of course, but it’s nice to have someone with her and besides she really likes him. It doesn’t matter that she shouldn’t. They’re all fucked now anyway, so there is nothing she can do about it.  
It wasn’t her fault anyway. She didn’t sign up for this whole zombie-business. Someone did this to her, like someone did this to Crush. She feels angry suddenly.

“I need you to find Crush,” she says suddenly.

“What?” Alec asks, he’s still half in the movie they’re watching, well he was watching, she not so much.

“You need to find Crush for me. I need to ask him what he knows about the heart-jars. I want to know who did this to me and I want that sandwich,” she adds.  
He hands it over without a comment. It tastes delicious.

“Should I make you more?”

“Yeah, and tea, lots of tea.”

~+~  
Crush is still in pain, because the demon is healing and they’re one. He is vowing to never ever get up from the couch when the knock comes. He knows he didn’t order anything just yet, so he ignores it. It’s not like he has any friends anyway.  
It knocks again and again. He groans.

“Open the freaking door!” Alec yells.  
Crush has a small heart attack he is sure. The demon laughs at him and waves a hand. The door swings open.

“Traitor,” Crush whispers to the demon. “Okay, so what do you want?”

“You look awful,” Alec says, entering.

“Charming as always,” Crush answers.

“Well, you deserve worse and you know it,” Alec replies, crossing his arms over his chest.

Crush grins, he is glad that Alec is here, despite everything. “What do you want?”

“Marta wants to talk to you,” Alec answers shrugging.

“About what?”

“Oh, let me guess: Maybe about the heart-jar and how she became a zombie and about you and I still want to punch you really hard, you know?” he asks out of the blue.

“Uhm…yeah, for what?”

“Leaving me like that, stealing my heart-jar, my memories, a freaking kiss!” Alec throws his hands up annoyed.

Crush can’t help the laugh that escapes from his mouth. Laughing hurts like a bitch, but well. “It’s all about the kiss isn’t it?”

“It’s not, it’s all about the feelings attached, Crush,” Alec says pissed off.

“I’m sorry, I thought it would be easier and safer.”

“For whom?” Alec wants to know.

_For us,_ the demon whispers and Crush tells it firmly to shut the fuck up. He doesn’t need that now.

“For you,” Alec states. For a seventeen year old he’s quite clever.

Crush sighs and nods. “So, can I just call her?”

“I guess, I’ll give you her number,” Alec answers crossing the room to sit down next to where Crush is lying on the couch. “Maybe you should move in with her, so I can look after you both,” he adds.  
Crush’s turns his head to look at him. Alec is staring at the wall ahead stubbornly.

“I’m okay,” he says softly.

“You’re clearly not, besides we can plot the downfall of the bad guys better when we don’t have to use only phones.”

“That sounds reasonable,” Crush admits.

“That’s because it is.”

“You and Marta really want to find the people who did this to her?”

“To you, because someone had clearly messed with you as well, what with the demon and shit.”

“Oh, she told you…”

“Of course. You know I am a witch, right?” Alec asks.

_Now we know,_ the demon says annoyed.

“Yeah, now we know,” Crush answers inching closer to Alec. It hurts, but it’s worth it.

“So, can you pack your clothes or should I?” Alec asks, grabbing Crush’ hand, he is still not looking at Crush.

“I can handle it, but if you want to inspect the bedroom again, be my guest,” Crush answers, squeezing Alec’s fingers.

Alec rolls his eyes. “In your dreams.”

~end~  



End file.
